Things That I Hope Are True About Heaven
by internationallyposh
Summary: What if Bella had been forced to have an abortion in Breaking Dawn? How would Edward justify his actions to a newborn Bella, and what are the long-term results of a Cullen family without Renesmee? Some drama, lots of heartbreak. Read if you've always wondered what would have happened to Bella and Edward if Renesmee hadn't been born.
1. what I thought were dreams

**one: what I thought were dreams**

"I don't want

To be human anymore

So I have covered the mirror

In blankets."

Melissa Broder, from _The Purpose of Ritual_

JACOB WAS smoky around the edges, russet-colored in skin and hair. He _matched_ , the cusp of a change, and he was shivering in the smoky, dense air of the forest that surrounded the Cullen's house. I breathed in sharply when I saw him. It had been so long since the wedding that I hardly questioned the situation, although little warning bells were going off in my head. Church bells, hardly ignorable.

"Bella," He breathed, relaxing when he saw me. "I'm so happy you're... you're..."

"Human." I finished, looking around the clearing. Of course he would be. There wasn't anything but the fog, Jacob, and a faint line of trees surrounding us. "Jake, do you know where we are?"

"The resting place." He said, like I should have known.

I furrowed my brow. "The what?"

"Bella, you _know_ ," He replied. His voice was exasperated, almost irritated. "Where we go when we- you know. When we die."

"I'm dead?!" I didn't feel dead. I raised my arms above my head, took a deep breath of cold air. What about Edward? And... the baby. If I was dead, then surely the baby would be, too. Unless he was strong enough to live on his own? Even though he'd been growing so fast, I wasn't sure. Or maybe this was the middle ground between life and death; humanity and vampirism. My hands automatically dropped to my stomach. _Nothing_. Flatter than even before I'd been pregnant. My heart- or what I perceived to be my heart- started racing.

And I couldn't ask Jacob. He didn't know about the baby, not in real life, and not in this strange half-world of forest and fog and loss.

"A part of you did," He replied vaguely, his eyes full of pity. "I'm sorry, Bella."

"Why?" I asked frantically. What had started as a weird quasi-dream was now quickly progressing into a nightmare. Even the trees seemed more imposing, as if they were tunneling in on me. "Jacob, what do you mean?"

"Renesmee," He spoke softly. "A part of me died, too, when it happened. That's why we're both here."

"Renesmee?" I asked, astounded. At once I knew what he was talking about. The baby, not the little boy I'd dreamed of, but a girl. My daughter. _Our_ daughter. Edward and I. "Dead? How? I- I would have given my life to protect her-"

"Because of _him._ " Jacob's voice was full of revulsion. " _Edward_. He killed her. He _murdered her_ , and he murdered us, Bella. Everything. You, me. She was my soulmate. My imprint, from the moment I was supposed to see her. She was _your daughter_. You loved her more-" Jacob's voice broke, like shards of glass.

I could feel every pain I'd ever felt in my life at that moment. Everything. How it felt to be bitten by James, or breaking my leg, or every one of the many injuries I'd sustained in my short life. It didn't measure up with the pain I felt at the loss of her. _Renesmee_. _Renesmee_.

"You loved her more than your own life, Bella." Jacob finished softly, kind now.

I felt myself cry, barely registering the heat of the tears that cascaded down my face. "How could he do that? He loved me. He promised he would never hurt me. He-"

"He wanted to protect you." Jacob said dully. "The problem is, the fucker doesn't know how to protect you. He gave you a gift, even if I wouldn't have been able to see it until I met her. But he took her away. Him and Carlisle and that blond bloodsucker. They got you by yourself, drugged you. Right now you're still in that study that Cullen, Senior turned into an operating room. You didn't even have a clue."

"How am I there, when I'm here?"

"You're here to say goodbye." Jacob answered, voice full of pain. "To me, and to everything you lost."

"I don't want to say goodbye," I replied, my voice thick with tears. I knew what would happen next, as if it was in my bones, my very DNA. "I don't want to know, Jacob. I want her, and you. I can't say goodbye."

"You have to, Bella. That's why we're here." Jacob looked into the trees. "She's coming, Bells."

I looked to where he was. And then I saw her.

I dropped to my knees instinctively. The smallest toddler of a girl, though perfectly proportioned and formed like a miniature adult, came hesitantly walking out from the density of the trees. She saw me, and I saw her, and I knew in that moment that nothing would be the same. I would never be able to forgive Edward. The love that came rushing out of me was purer than anything I'd ever felt in my entire life. I loved her _differently_ , and I finally understood my mother's panicked voice on the phone, or Charlie's frequent and open hostility towards Edward. Renesmee was _everything_ that mattered, and now I understood why I was here. Of course it had killed me when I couldn't protect her. Of course a part of me was dead, and Jacob too.

She ran to me. She was perfect, from her auburn curls to her wide chocolate eyes- _my eyes_ , I realized with a start. How perfect they looked there in her cherubic little face, her skin a flawless porcelain, her cheeks slightly flushed, indicating her human heartbeat. She jumped into my waiting arms, like a piece of a puzzle, as much a part of me as the veins in my heart or the bones in my body. "Momma," She breathed. "You came _home._ "

"Renesmee, baby." I cried into her hair. She leaned back, studied me with her wide, speculative gaze.

"Don't cry, Momma," She said, wiping the tears from my face. "You're with me now. And so is Jacob. We're together again, and that's all that matters."

I couldn't bear to contradict her beauty, or her surety. "I missed you," I said, my voice thick. "My little nudger."

Renesmee gave me a wide, brilliant, pearly-toothed smile. "I missed you, too, Momma. I've been waiting _forever,_ " She said proudly.

Jacob came up to us, and looked at me over her head, his eyes blazing. But he didn't say a word. I understood immediately. Neither of us would say something that would upset her; it was cruel, unjust even in thought. It was like the whole world made sense when I held her, when she shifted in my arms. She was sturdy, and a little cooler than perhaps a normal child, but she was perfect.

We sat there for many moments, or possibly forever, just with me holding her, inhaling her lovely scent, memorizing her beautiful face. So much mine, and yet so much Edward's. And even though I could not forgive him, a deep love still burned. Look what we had made. How could he have ever thought she was a monster? How could he have taken her away from me?

Renesmee must have seen a shift on my face from love to fury, and her brow furrowed and her eyes dropped. "I have to go now," She announced sadly. "It's time."

"No," I said, commanding.

"Yes," She said, confirming. "Momma, I don't want to. But I have to. I'm not allowed to stay much longer."

"I love you." I told her. I wasn't going to spend my last moments with her having a breakdown; I couldn't do that, not even to the memory of her. "More than my own life."

"Plus que mon propre vie, Momma. That's what you said. I love you, too. I-" Renesmee's eyes filled with tears. "I always did. I never meant to hurt you, I-"

I gathered her up into my arms, I held her close. "I never thought you did, baby." I told her gently. "From the moment I felt you, everything changed. You became my world. And this doesn't change anything. I will always love you more than anything. Please, remember that."

"It's not goodbye, Momma." She told me softly. "I'll see you again someday."

I looked at her and smiled, and she gave a radiant, crooked smile in response. "I know. You'll wait for me? You promise?" She nodded fervently.

"Jacob will be with me soon." She announced, happy, with something like possession. "He won't keep me waiting. But I won't see you for a long time, Momma." She kept her smile, although it wavered. "Don't come to me soon, Momma. Jacob is different. He was made for me. But _you made me_. You can't come to me too soon. You have to promise me." As she spoke, she grew. From a toddler to a teenage girl, standing up with me, holding my hands tight. Her voice grew stronger and more mature, until she was my equal, my height exactly, although more beautiful than I could ever hope to me. "Promise me, Mom. You have to stay."

I looked into her eyes that so mirrored mine, and I knew with a resigned intuition that I would not see Renesmee again for a long, long time. "I promise, Renesmee."

She smiled at me. "I'm sorry, Mom. About everything. The burning. I'm sorry."

I could feel it, but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing her. "It's nothing, baby. I love you."

"I love you, too." She turned from me. "Jake?"

He came over, held her hand. The burning was getting stronger now, and I could hardly keep the look of pain off my face. But I knew I must.

"I love you, Bella." Jake said. "Thank you for everything. And I will see you again."

I nodded. "I love you, Jake. I'll see you." And as they turned from me, Jake gave me a smile like the ones he'd give me when we worked on the bikes together, the pre-wolf ones. He was no longer shimmery around the edges. He was whole, younger, with that sunshine smile again. And then as quickly as they were in front of me, they disappeared, and I was alone.

The forest became eerily silent, and I sat on the floor, holding my chest with my arms like I'd done those long nights when he had left me, and I sobbed.

I could feel the fire, moving through my veins, but I welcomed the pain. I delved into it. I embraced the fire, the pain, because I knew I deserved it. I had lost her. The one thing I swore to protect, that I needed to, I had lost.

I deserved hellfire. And so when the venom overtook me, I threw myself to it. I let it consume me, like chaos, like ice.

And, for the first time in my existence, I hated Edward Cullen.


	2. what I woke up to

**two: what I woke up to**

 __

 _does the winter dream of the summer_

 _just like I dream of you_

 _on these dark nights?_

MY LAST EVER sleep as a human ended abruptly. One moment I was swimming in pain, the next my heart gave a final, resolute thud, and my eyes opened to a room so terribly familiar.

Dust motes shone in the air. I inhaled sharply, a reflex, only to taste a plethora of the scents around me- cotton and sandalwood, something like sunshine, the rich mahogany of polished wood and an ivory of piano keys. I gazed at the raftered ceiling in a hollow wonder: how fragile my eyesight had been as a human. How small, how weak. I thought back to my memories; already they were difficult to recall, already losing definition- except Renesmee, of course. Since I'd been caught in the half-life, those memories were crystal clear, albeit painful to dwell on.

My hands folded over a flat stomach, which caused a deep pain in my chest, although I'd been expecting that. Thirst flared up- I'd expected that, too, but it was simply an echo of the previous burn. I wondered vaguely how fast I could get out of this house- if anyone could stop me, if I could use my newborn abilities to my advantage and leave before someone pinned me down, or if they would try at all. I hoped they would realize they had no right to make me stay, even if I was Edward's wife, or even if they had created me. But I thought back to Edward's tales of a vampire rebellion against Carlisle, and knew that the worst they'd do would be to try to "convince me". As if I could ever look at any of them the same way again; as if I would _want_ to.

"Bella." The voice startled me- to my new ears, it was as unfamiliar as an enemy's, as strange to my new mind as anything I had so far experienced, which, to be fair, was not much. I found myself in a defensive position in the corner of the room, locking eyes with someone who I, with shock, recognized as none other than Jasper.

"Jasper?" I asked in surprise a millisecond later. He was covered in bite marks, a true sign of danger. Every bell in me seemed to ring when I gazed at his face; it was like seeing a burn victim or someone who'd been shot. I couldn't look away from the crescent scars that so matched the one I'd had as a human, when James bit me.

Jasper smiled a little sadly, like he sensed my alarm. _Of course he senses your alarm_ , I reminded myself, amazed at my stupidity. _That's his gift, for Christ's sake_. "Don't feel rude for staring," He said softly. "Everyone does, at first."

There was a silence in which I darted my gaze around the room. The hollow feeling refused to leave me, although I was now getting the impression that the only thing keeping it at bay- and keeping me sane- was the vampire standing in front of me. The _only_ vampire, I noticed. So he had been too ashamed to show his face. Any of them, for that matter. They'd sent Jasper in as a guard, someone to protect the volatile newborn, to protect themselves from _me_. I snorted. I knew I could kill them, but I didn't want to. I wanted them to suffer, just as I would. Killing them would be far too easy.

Why even turn me in the first place? Hadn't Edward known that without the baby, with him taking her away from me, all of my previous desire to be immortal had vanished? He'd always claimed he wanted me to be human. He had so resisted the idea of me joining him in eternity, had fought so hard to preserve my humanity. And yet, in one swift motion, he had taken every notion of that away from me: my child, and my life, although they were figuratively one and the same. With the death of Renesmee, _the murder,_ all of my will to live had vanished. But even as I thought those thoughts, my promise to her rang in my ears. _To stay._

It's not like I had much of a choice, anyway. I knew, without a doubt, not one vampire would help me die. Not even Rosalie, who must have been in pain, too. Someone would stop her, even Emmett, out of some brotherly duty to Edward.

I watched Jasper's face with curiosity. While I processed my emotions in a split second, his face had gone from tortured to confused, to what I now saw as a kind of curiosity.

"Where is he?" I asked idly. "Or everyone else, for that matter."

"Rosalie and Emmett have left the coven for- an unspecified amount of time. Emmett said they're traveling for the next few decades, but he didn't say where." Jasper spoke carefully, only meeting my eyes for the barest of moments. "Carlisle is upstairs, Esme is in the kitchen, Alice is outside of this room, and-"

" _Edward_ is where?" I interrupted. "Having tea with Esme? Composing a song? Listening to _shitty_ 50's music, writing with angst in his diary?"

Jasper's face contorted. "He's by the river."

"It's nice to know my own husband is so obviously worried about my transition into the life we were supposed to share together." Jasper flinched at my biting tone.

"Bella, try to-" Jasper began to plead with me, but I cut him off.

"No, Jasper. And _don't you even dare_ fuck with my emotions!" I snarled, as I began to feel a calming presence overtake my state of mind. "You let me feel what I'm feeling, and you let me say what I want to say. I'm done with this. I've barely been awake for five minutes, and I already know I can't stay here."

"Where will you go?" He asked me, relinquishing his emotional hold on me slowly, and I began to feel the real pain that had been caged up. One final let go from Jasper, and I was on the floor, holding myself together again.

"Bella!" I heard small footsteps fly to me, and Alice's hesitating hand touch my quivering back.

" _Get off of me_!" I snarled at her. I halfway expected Jasper to intervene, but he stayed where he was, fixed motionless against the doorframe. "Don't you dare touch me, _Alice Cullen._ " I spit out.

She looked at me, shocked. Her pixie face wore an expression of utmost surprise, hurt, and confusion, which only fueled my hate further. _How dare_ they be surprised by my behavior. Did they just expect that I would wake up, happy and carefree, skipping around and thanking them all profusely for having a heavy hand in murdering my child and driving me to hate my own husband? Did Alice seriously expect that she could play the best-friend card again, that she could dress me up and comfort me, that now that I was immortal she'd have a BFF for eternity?

No. That wasn't how that was going to work. _At all_. I could see Alice's face fall slack as she processed the future; no doubt seeing a vision of me losing it on her, and probably anyone else that tried to intervene. "Oh Bella, I'm so sorry," She cried out, but no pity or otherwise rose up in me at her anguish: instead, only a callous satisfaction.

"You should be." I said coldly. I felt a creeping emotional trail of detachment almost offered to me by Jasper, and I accepted it. I saw Alice's face relax when I did so, and it hit me how much control they'd always had over my life. I was just seeing it now. Before, I hadn't been able to detect Jasper's charm nearly as well, or see the individual expressions flash lightning-fast across Alice's face as she processed several different futures at once. I wondered vaguely if Edward could hear my thoughts now that I was a vampire, but quickly assumed that no, he wouldn't. What a shame. Now I would actually have to speak at him to scream, and that was one thing I was looking forward to but dreading at the same time.

Jasper offered peace, and I took it. I knew as soon as he left my emotional sphere I would be reduced down to the ground again, and I wanted to be coherent while I still could be. "Where is she?" I asked softly. Jasper and Alice exchanged a look; that was right, I'd been so convinced that Renesmee was a boy, back when I was human. But regardless, they didn't question how I knew this information.

"She's by the river." Alice said, quietly enough that if I were still human, I wouldn't have been able to hear even a whisper. _By the river._ And so was Edward. So was he mourning the loss of our daughter- probably _not_ , considering he was the one who gave orders to kill her- or was he simply using her grave as a flimsy excuse so that I wouldn't avoid him? How callous, I thought. How despicable. It filled me with a sense of fury that I could not go see my daughter without also seeing the _thing_ that killed her.

"I want to go to her." I said simply. "I want to go to her, and then I want to leave this coven."

"Bella," Alice began, a pleading tone. "Please, don't-"

"You have no right to influence anything I do now." I stated. "You stood right by while-" My voice stopped, halted. If I was human it would have broke, but being a vampire did not allow for such imperfections. How awful it was that I was now unable to cry, unable to do anything at all but lay on the ground, to curl up into a little ball. For the first time, I understood why Carlisle wanted to die so badly when he was first turned. The overwhelming disgust and dread of my own eternal existence was one very hard for me to come to terms with, even with Jasper restraining my emotions. "While they took her from me."

Alice lowered her gaze, in something I was pleased to see was actual shame. "I'm so sorry, Bella." she said again. "We didn't know."

"I want to go now." I looked at Jasper. "Please come with me."

He nodded, and Alice knew better than to follow as I flitted out of the room, Jasper at my heels.

I RECOGNIZED her by her scent. She smelled exactly the same as in dreams, no rot, nothing. That, at least was a comfort. The same lovely, sweet, summer scent lead me to the peaceful overlook in the forest, right on the river as Alice had said. I saw the freshly dug mound, and not even Jasper's strong grip on my emotions at that moment could stop the high keening that came out from deep in my soul, or what was left of it, at least.

Jasper moaned behind me in response to the tidal wave of mourning that rose up inside of me. We didn't speak; we didn't have to. Although I sensed that Jasper had had a role in Renesmee's death, I knew he was one of the only vampires who could truly sense what it had done to me. I figured his tie-in to my emotions would be satisfying 'payback' so to speak; in the meantime, I found myself actually being grateful that I didn't have to sit through my grief alone, as I knew I would for the better part of eternity.

"Do you smell her?" I finally asked after several hours, while the sunset and twilight fell over the woods. Jasper looked at me in the fading September night, his face streaked with the blue and pink of of the setting sky.

"I don't smell…. rot, if that's what you mean." He said carefully.

I shook my head. "No, I know. She was too- _vampire_ \- for that. I mean, do you _smell_ her. The flowers. And the warmth. Like strawberries, or a garden."

Jasper gave me a soft smile as he closed his eyes. "Now that you mention it, I think I do."

"Your drawl. It came out just now."

"It does that, sometimes. When I think about human memories. Nostalgia." Jasper replied. "I remember human memories better than most other vampires," Jasper added.

"Really?" I looked at him, surprised for the first time in my immortal life.

"Yes. Carlisle thinks it's because… my emotions either let me relate more to humans, or that I had a more vampire-like state of mind while I was still human." Jasper let out a small laugh. "I think it's the latter. I was so charming as a human, I could get anyone to do anything I wanted. It didn't leave me with too many genuine emotions of my own. I just absorbed so much from my environment that I became this- _vessel_ \- instead of a human. I didn't really realize it until I joined the Cullen coven, and started to feel the way 'normal' people feel."

"Wow, Jasper. Human you sounds like a fucking psychopath." I stated, deadpan.

I was surprised to hear Jasper laugh again. "Well, maybe," He admitted, the drawl back again, just slightly. "But I like to think I was just too overwhelmed to _really_ feel."

"I wish I could relate." I said, and it sobered up the mood very fast.

Jasper touched my arm, and in that touch, I felt every weight inside my heart disappear for just one moment. When I glanced at him, I saw the pain on his face, and realized that he had taken all of my negativity away from me for just one moment, and that it was excruciating for him. "I don't know how you're living," he gasped, after. "Jesus, _Bella_."

"I don't think any of us are 'living' anymore, Jasper," I noted tonelessly. "Existing, maybe? But not living."

"She was beautiful." Jasper said after a few minutes. "I was there. Rosalie had to be kept away by Emmett, I could hear her screaming, kicking, doing everything she thought she could to get away. Alice was in the basement. She saw the future, and it only fueled Edward. He was convinced it was the right thing to do."

A large part of me wanted to scream at him to stop, but I knew I must hear. I had to hear everything so that I would not allow my fury to die, so that I would not forgive any of them- no, not even Jasper, who was telling me this, not even sweet Esme, not even Alice, and especially not Edward. _Edward._

The only innocent person- besides Renesmee, of course- was Rosalie. Even if I knew that the only reason she wanted me to live as a human was because of Renesmee, I respected her beyond belief. Kicking and screaming. How terrible, to be a vampire in that moment. To hear every incision, every tear, every cut, every last heartbeat, clear as day. She was a better woman than me to forgive Emmett, or perhaps she was just much more afraid than I was of being alone. Perhaps that is what centuries of existing does to a person. To a _thing_. I found myself, once turned, no longer believing in the humanity of vampires, not even myself any longer. I was no longer a human; I was a predator. I could feel the thirst burning in my throat, but I relished the pain. The pain was the only real thing to me any longer. Edward was right, I realized grimly. I am a monster.

Jasper continued in the same detached, almost clinical manner. "You were drugged, of course. They did it in your sleep, and carried you to the operating room. Carlisle got everything ready, and he looked at Edward. 'Are you sure?' he asked him. Edward was quiet. I could tell he was reading everyone's mind, and when he was finished with Alice, he said, 'Yes.'"

I let out a low hiss, but Jasper kept talking. "At first, Carlisle tried to use his scalpel. But the skin encasing your womb was too hard already. So he decided to use his teeth, while we watched. It was terrible. When he bit the womb, blood poured out all over the table. I don't know how I was able to stay- I guess we were all too horrified to move, even Carlisle, for a moment. The blood was different, anyway. It was too specified. Almost like your body was actually aiding the baby, by making a different- _type of_ blood, or changing it somehow. Like the way a normal mother would make breast milk. It was like your body was actually programmed, on some level, to create that kind of child."

I breathed in sharply. It had been something I'd suspected while pregnant with her, but I had never voiced it, in fear of being pronounced more delusional than they already thought I was.

"Carlisle actually thinks that's a possibility," He continued. "That our evolutionary branches are not as far apart as originally thought; how else would you have been able to conceive in the first place? But, regardless. He bit the uterus open, and pulled out the baby. She was very small, and formed enough that we could see her hair, and her eyes, which were open. They were brown."

"I know," I said softly. Jasper gave me a curious glance, but did not press the matter.

"She was beautiful, we could all see that. But she wasn't strong enough to live on her own yet. Her heart beat exactly three times after Carlisle separated her from you- three times, long enough for me to think that maybe she would make it. He tried, too. They did CPR, but they don't think she worked the same way as other babies. Carlisle says if they had more knowledge, more time- she could have been okay. Even if they'd waited a few more days, she might have been able to survive out by herself. But it was too early. Her heart stopped beating, and her eyes closed."

"I've never seen Edward look that devastated, Bella. He looked as though he'd lost his entire world, even though you were laying there in front of him, perfectly fine and alive. The only times I've seen him look half that tortured were when you were hurt, or he was afraid of hurting you."

His words rang in my ears, reached me deep inside a place I didn't know that I still had. A love for him, for Edward. But I quickly shook the feelings off, afraid of what they could lead to. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. "Wait, if I was fine, then why did Carlisle turn me? I assumed that the reason I was turned was because I reacted badly to the procedure, and the only way for me to keep existing was to become a vampire."

Jasper was quiet, like he didn't know if he should keep talking or not. "Jasper, tell me." I commanded with force in my voice.

"Carlisle didn't turn you," Jasper spoke carefully, choosing his words unlike earlier, where he'd been in a mechanical trance of retelling. "Edward did. After- after Carlisle pronounced the baby dead, he wanted to start stitching you up and everything. We assumed Edward would want you to stay human, since that was the main reason everyone wanted to- you know, save you. But Edward stopped him. 'No, Carlisle.' he said. 'She will never forgive me, and you know that she will kill herself if she remains human. I have to turn her so that she will live.' Carlisle asked him if he was sure, again, and told him you would most definitely leave and that we'd run the risk of you actually killing or seriously hurting him. 'I don't care,' Edward said. 'We did this so that Bella would live, and I'm not letting her die. Ever.' Carlisle offered to help him, but he refused. He injected you with morphine, and then he turned you. I left at that point, and so did Carlisle. Edward stayed with you the first two days, but on the third, this morning, he left. He didn't think you'd want him there when you woke up."

I was quiet for a long moment, and then finally spoke again. "Carlisle was right. I will never forgive him for what he did to me."

Jasper touched my arm. The same overwhelming relief of pain flowed through me, and this time, he took all of my pain. Every ounce. Every bruise, every scrape. Every stubbed toe, every broken arm, every vampire bite, every ounce of grief I had over losing Renesmee. I watched his face in wonder as it grew even paler than I thought a vampire's could, as he grew ashen and gaunt with the emotional baggage that he took as his own, for just one long, eternal moment. "What are you left with?" He managed to choke out, while I was still under his spell.

I looked at the sky, night now. Orion's Belt peeked through an opening in the trees; clear as bells. "Love, Jasper." And it was true. Love for everyone. Love for Renesmee, shining brighter than even the stars. Love for Jasper, beside me, for taking away my pain unto himself. Love for Alice, who I knew was watching my future right now with her breath held. Love for Carlisle and Esme and Emmett for doing what they honestly thought was best for me, to save my fragile human life as they had spent the previous two years doing. And, shining on par with Renesmee, love for _him_. Edward. The kind of love I'd first experienced as a human, some of my brighter memories. The night we were one. All the mornings in the Forks High parking lot. All the nights he spent cradling me to sleep. Our wedding day. The look on his face when he slipped the ring on my finger. Our first kiss. Our last kiss, when I was sick and pregnant and terrified. The look on his face when he realized I wanted Renesmee; the fear of losing me, the fear that I would have had at losing him.

But then Jasper could not take it any longer, and the love disappeared, replaced again by a burning hatred for Edward Cullen, the murderer of our child. "Infanticide, Jasper." I said dully. "That's what is it. Spousal abuse and infanticide. He had no right to decide for me."

"You're right, Bella." Jasper said quietly. "I won't say you aren't. But- eternity is a long time to hate. I'm afraid if you keep doing this, that love you feel won't matter one day, that it won't even register. I've seen it happen. You'd turn into a real monster. You won't be able to feel anything but thirst and hate, and you'll go wild. Feral."

I listened until he stopped talking, and then I didn't say another word for another two hours.

"Good." I finally replied. I stood up. "I'll be at the house tonight to tell everyone goodbye, but expect me gone by the morning."

"Bella, wait-"

"No, Jasper. I need some time alone." I could feel his emotional grip on me subsiding with every flitting step I took deeper into the forest, but I kept going, determined. I wasn't sure where I was heading, but I knew intuitively that I was going where I needed to go. And I was finally strong enough, and powerful enough, that no one could stop me in my path. No one.

Not even Edward fucking Cullen.


	3. edward & goodbye

**three : edward & goodbye**

 _Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything._

 _C.S Lewis,_ _A Grief Observed_

THE AIR WAS cooling down. September came early in Washington, the alien-green forest getting even cooler as I sprinted through the trees. I remembered once I had hated it here. Now, I could not even imagine the appeal of blinding-hot days or Arizona sunshine. I had fed just recently, and I could feel myself stronger already. The strength of my new body was something that I found hard to grasp; I felt like a different person. As soon as that thought entered my mind, I realized that I was. I was no longer Isabella Swan, daughter of police chief, Edward Cullen's girlfriend.

I was Bella Cullen. No, just Bella. Bella without a last name, or a lover, or a daughter. And most importantly, I was a vampire.

I caught scent of something unmistakable. Honeysuckle and lilac and the edge of something unnamable but that resonated deep inside my soul. It was him. Edward. But it was an old scent, a trail. I couldn't stop myself from following it, and it led me deeper into the forest, until, with a shock, I stumbled upon a clearing with a small house.

He wasn't there anymore, I could tell that. But he had been recently enough. The scent was everywhere, saturated with it. I checked the front door; it opened easily.

I cautiously peered inside, just in case, before stepping in and shutting the door. It was tiny. I could tell that it had been very carefully tailored to fit what I wanted; there was a fireplace, and shelves of dark mahogany that held what I saw to be my old books, tattered and worn. There was a stocked kitchen, and I suppressed a wry grin. Of course. If we'd ever had a dinner party, one where nobody fucking ate. I walked further, until reaching a small room that was absolutely soaked in his scent. _It was the clothes_ , I realized. I went over to the closet to see it stocked with not only a moderately small- in comparison- rack of his scent to rows and rows of clothes I realized were intended for my wearing. I wrinkled my forehead. As if I would ever wear any of that, anyway. It gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction to know that Alice would never be able to dictate to me what I would wear again.

A feeling of violence rose up inside me. I wanted to scream, and rip all of his things off the walls and racks and destroy them. I knew he'd smell me when he came in next. A calmer violent impulse overtook me; I would not touch anything. I would leave my scent in the air and have the satisfaction of him torturing himself over it.

I could not help myself but wonder where he was. Surely Jasper had returned to the house by now, and if I knew Edward at all, he would be looking for me.

And as soon as I processed that thought, I heard the door open.

"Bella?"

I could hear him so much better. As I had likened the sound of his voice to bells while I was human, he was like a symphony now. I couldn't bear to face him, but I felt his very presence in the room more than I allowed myself to admit. I closed my eyes, and conjured a picture of our perfect little girl.

"I can't believe you have the nerve to show your face." I choked out. It wasn't so much anger as utter despair. "I can't believe you turned me."

"I'm so sorry." I heard his angelic voice say. _Demon_ , I wanted to scream at him. But I couldn't. For as much as I had hoped it would not be the case- for as much as I had convinced myself that I could not possibly ever feel the same way about him- I loved him. I could not call him a demon, for there was a very large part of me that wanted nothing more than to be comforted by him.

When the person who hurt you is the only one you want to comfort you, that's how you know you're really fucked.

"Please, love, look at me."

"I'm not your love." I snarled. "Look at me, Edward. Look at me. Do you think I'm the same Bella you loved? Did you honestly think that I _could ever_ be the same?"

I looked at him, and he flinched. I could see the horror on his face; the revulsion at my red eyes, my pale skin. He had loved human Bella. He had loved her softness, her sweetness. Her kitten-like meows of protest and brown eyes. He'd loved her _scent_ most of all. And now that all of that was gone, what were we left with?  
"I-" He faltered.

"Exactly."

"Bella, I still love you." He said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I know

don't feel the same. I don't care you're different. I'm-" He stopped, looked away, ashamed. "I'm sorry that I turned you. I'm sorry you're changed."

"Yeah, me too." I said icily. "It's strange to me that you refused to even think about turning me when I was still willing, yet as soon as I changed my mind you gave in."

He flinched again, as though I'd hit him. Which, in that moment, I wanted to. I wanted him to fight with me. I wanted to scream, to release every ounce of fury I had towards him. I did not want him to be cowering like a kicked puppy, or muttering apologies to me for the rest of eternity. Eternity. It now seemed bleaker than ever. Once, forever with Edward seemed like a dream come true, something I thought about to get me out of my darkest moments. Now, it was a nightmare. A never-ending, stretching nightmare. I just wanted the sun to implode in that moment and get it over with. I wanted to die. I wanted to be with her.

I missed her. I missed my baby.

"Forgive me," He said in a wild, almost unintelligible manner. I got the impression that it wasn't even me he was speaking to; that he was praying wildly, begging for a higher forgiveness than he would ever get. He looked at me, and I saw it. The burning. The fire that had turned him from human to vampire and me the same, reflected on his face. It was absolutely tortured. It reminded me of how he'd looked when I had chose to keep the baby. The fear of losing me. And now it was utterly etched onto his features, like it would stay there as long as I kept looking at him and being near him and speaking to him. With a start, I realized this was how it would be forever. I could never forgive him, and he would never forgive himself. We were stuck at an impasse, and it would eventually drive one of us mad.

But I could not say it was okay. I could not forgive, when my whole soul ached for that beautiful little girl who had been ripped away from me by the hands of her own father. It would drive him mad, I thought to myself. It will drive both of us mad.

"Edward," I said in a whisper, barely audible. His head whipped up, his golden ochre eyes burning into my crimson ones, his face made of stone. But I knew where all his surface cracks were. I'd always known, and they all had my own name written in them, hammered into his very being. "Just tell me why. Why did you do that to me?"

"I love you," He replied, sinking to the floor, reminiscent of my breakdown in front of Jasper. "I am selfish, and I love you. Bella, I-" He looked up, the epitome of beauty, the kind of beautiful that I at once understood that people would kill themselves for, write epics for, die for. "I cannot explain the horror of seeing you like that. I thought it was a monster. I thought it would be as if every cruel and terrible thing in me was manifested inside of you, that I would kill you from the inside out if I did not do anything-"

"She, Edward." I corrected him simply, observing him from my height almost indifferently, I looked him in the eye, neither of us wavering eye contact in the slightest. "She was our daughter, not an 'it'. _Her name_ is Renesmee."

"Renesmee," He mouthed. At once the burning man flashed across his features. "You will never forgive me for this." He stated, calm.

"No," I agreed. "You will never forgive yourself, either."

"How could I?" He gave me a twisted smile. "Yet I think that this is the case for everyone involved."

"Your family forgives you." I replied coldly.

He barked a thin sounding laughter. "I know that they do not, and especially no one forgives my turning you."

"They let it happen."

"I manipulated them."

"They love you."

"They love you, too, and more, I might add, after this."

"Carlisle will always have room for forgiveness in his heart."

"He doubts me this time." Edward did his strange barking laugh again, somehow twisted in his throat. "You forget I can read everyone's mind but yours. Rosalie will kill me if she comes near me, or she will try her best. Emmett would do his best to keep us apart, not out of love for me, but obligation to memory, which means I will never see either of them again. They will never join our coven again. I saw it. I saw it all, actually, through Alice."

"Jasper pities me, although he still holds brotherly affection, and Alice, too. But that will change. I have showed everyone how truly despicable and heartless I can be, and everyone is horrified. I get the impression now, that nobody actually thought I would go through with it. They believed that my love for you would stop me from at least turning you."

"That is the part that Esme resents me for. That I turned you. I have stolen from you- yes, she considers the loss of Renesmee theft- and I have stolen your life. I have taken away every right to body and soul that you could have. Carlisle, of course, is conflicted. I have seen it in his thoughts. On one hand, I am his first son, his first companion. He knows most of my soul, the dark things that I have said and expressed to him. He _understands._ " For the first time in his soliloquy, Edward broke our gaze for a split second, and when he returned, it was more blazing than ever. "But he also thinks, and I have seen this hidden away, that perhaps I am more monster than human. He will never forget that day. He cannot shake the image of Renesmee out of his mind, and he thanks God that Esme and Alice were not present, for he thinks there would have been a mutiny if they really knew what it was like in that operating room, if they had seen and not heard, if they had felt more than I did in that moment to something that I, myself, had helped create."

I was speechless. The pain etched in Edward's voice was second only to my own. I said nothing; I could not. I was stuck in that room, in that house, in that eternity with the knowledge that I had lost everything.

"Come with me, Bella," He spoke softly, pleading with me. "Come with me to her, so we can say goodbye together. I know you are leaving. I have seen it in Alice's thoughts, and it gets stronger every minute you spend with me."

"Of course it does," I said, surprising even myself. "Everytime I look at you, I see her. She- she resembled you so."

"How-" Edward's brow furrowed slightly, leaving no etch. _Unnatural_ , I thought for the first time. _We are not natural creatures. We must have landed here on accident a million years is no way anything on Earth could have evolved to be-_ _ **this.**_

"I saw her in a dream." I said simply. "In the time before she died and before I woke, I saw her in the resting place. The forest. The place you go when you die. I saw her- and Jacob Black. We both lost ourselves when she was gone. I lost my humanity. I know that- Jacob lost his life that day."

Edward's face was slack with horror, with confirmed recognition. I supposed to his Christian-raised self, what I saw had much more meaning to him than I. I had thought of it as simply a place; not Heaven or Hell, but a place in which I was with two of the people I loved best in the world, and where I now knew without a doubt I would return to after the Earth crumbled into a place not even I could survive. An imploding sun, a wave of dissipating radiation. I would be reduced to ash, and I looked forward to that day with every ounce of my being. "You know about Jacob."

"Yes." I said quietly, but it held no sorrow. I was envious of how easy it was for him. I knew it would be centuries before I was "weak" enough to take my own life, and even then it would be extremely difficult. I also knew no one would help me.

"I'm sorry." He hung his head.

"Don't be," I said fiercely, defensively. "He is with her now, and that's a hell of a place better than here. Don't pity him. Envy him, if anything." I gazed outside, at the darkness of the night, but was no longer afraid. "I am going to her now."

Side by side, we flitted to our daughter, but it held no joy; only a deep cavern of sorrow. _This is not how it was supposed to be_ , I found myself thinking desperately. _This is all wrong, all wrong._

HIS FACE in the glow of the rising sun mimicked Jasper's last night. Already, time held no meaning for me. I wasn't sure if it was the newborn effect, or the wake that Renesmee had left, or perhaps both. Either way, I didn't care. We sat side by side, over the small mound of fresh dirt that was overturned. Now that I had him here, I could smell how his scent had manifested itself in her. The missing parts of him in hers must be mine. It was overwhelming. The scent of flowers, honeysuckle, and river.

I instinctively knew this would be the last time that I would be near either of them in the physical world for a long, long time.

Edward finally broke the silence, the small wake we were holding. "Do you remember me telling you," Edward said softly, "about how vampires can be fundamentally changed in just one moment?"

"Vaguely," I said. "I remember being pleased that you said meeting me changed you more than anything else had in your immortality."

"Yes." He confirmed quietly. "We aren't like people- in any way, really. Time heals no wounds for us. I am sorry for that. I am sorry for everything." We were silent for many long moments, something that would have made me fidgety and uncomfortable in my humanity. But in the afterlife on Earth, it was nothing. A long moment could be a second, or a second a thousand years. "What I felt for you changed me irreversibly; I knew in that moment that I could never be the same. I had a similar experience when I held Renesmee in my arms after Carlisle and I aborted her and she opened up her eyes."

I stayed quiet. It was strange to hear him speak about what had happened in such clinical terms; most everyone skirted around the actual event or referred to it only in allusions. His voice was back to the Burning Man. I could practically see the flames licking the inside of his throat. "If I wasn't convinced I'm going to Hell before, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the closest to Heaven I will ever get. Hell on Earth." He laughed cynically. "I don't think it's a coincidence that I was not in the forest with you and Renesmee and Jacob."

After all that we had been through, and all Edward had lived, I knew I would not be able to change his mind. But I still had to try, even if speaking about Renesmee only heightened my hatred for him. "Maybe you won't." I simply said. "Maybe your Heaven is different than mine."

Edward gave me a piercing look. "You must not remember my love for you very well," he said slowly. "The reason I wasn't in that forest is because I don't belong there. Renesmee is in Heaven, and so is Jacob Black. And you will be, too, someday. When- whatever this is-" he waved his hands around wildly. "ceases to be. I will be in Hell. I killed my own child, Bella. I forced my wife into aborting for my own selfish reasons, and I inflicted this half-life onto you, knowing you would resent me. As you should," he added quickly. "I will never be able to forget exactly how much she weighed, or the look on her face when Carlisle held her up. Like she knew what was happening, like she had a concept of death and that it was waiting for her. I will never forget the sound of her heartbeat. Or her eyes. Your eyes. _You lived on, in her_. I stole that. From both of you, I stole _both of your lives._ And for what reason? Because I was scared. I could not bear the thought of losing you, and so I listened to my own selfish reasoning, and I convinced those around me to aid me in it. I destroyed our family. I destroyed our marriage. And in trying so hard to keep you with me, I lost you."

I should have been angry. I should have cursed him, hit him, hurt him as he had hurt me and her. When I listened to his words, I felt a deep sense of pity and loss when I realized Edward actually thought he was going to Hell. "How do We even know my dream is real at all?" I mused. "What if it wasn't- what if it was just a drug-induced coping mechanism of a dream dredged up from my subconscious?"

He moved suddenly, and stopped himself. It was only a fraction of a second before I got that he had almost touched me; that he had almost comforted me. It was smart of him to stop. I would have thrown him fifty yards away from me by his forearm if he had.

"It wasn't, Bella." He said, locking his honey eyes with my own. "I believed in God when I was human, so long ago, and that didn't just go away when I became a vampire. But I knew from the moment I killed a man I was going to Hell. For a while I deluded myself- when I was with you- that perhaps I was destined for other things beyond my previous realm of possibility. But I do not think that any longer."

"I'm serious, though." I pressed the matter. "It was just a dream, and what's to say this all isn't? What if I'm still there, and this is a future Alice is seeing to stop you from doing what you want to do?"

"How would you have known about her eyes, or that she was even a she in the first place? You were convinced it was a boy." Edward's voice held not a single measure of doubt. "It was real. I'm not sure how; I don't know if I'll ever be. You've always been intuitive. It comes as no surprise to me that you saw her."

"I could have guessed. And as far as the eyes go, brown is dominant over green."

"Jacob Black, then?"

I flinched. Jacob's funeral wouldn't be easy. I wouldn't attend, obviously, but I could imagine the wolves mourning in the forest. Jacob had never phased once he woke up from the same dream that we shared that night. He had gone into Billy's bedroom, grabbed a revolver, and shot himself in the mouth. I knew the pack blamed my marriage to Edward, and that it was only a matter of time before they came looking to see if I was still human; if not, there would be nothing stopping them from killing the lot of us. But by then I planned to be long gone, anyway. I had mixed feelings about the fate of the remaining Cullen's. Without Emmett, Jasper was the only real fighter- Edward wouldn't fight back, blaming himself the way he did and should have. Carlisle wouldn't fight, but might flee with Esme if given the chance. As for Alice and Jasper- maybe Alice could use that big imagination of hers and dredge something up, somewhere to go.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I didn't mean-"

"He said she was his imprint." I cut him off. "Maybe that's why he was so obsessed with human me."

"That's rather disturbing."

"So is the concept of imprinting on a baby." I replied. "There might be one upside to this. We don't have to deal with that." I was getting mildly hysterical. It wasn't funny. None of this was funny, but I couldn't stop the tumbling words coming out of my mouth. "No wolf for a son in law, huh, Edward?"

Edward sat there, a shocked, alarmed expression on his face.

"Just let me ask you one thing, Edward," I said, sobering up, a nasty edge creeping into my voice. "Did you even want a baby with me? Was that part of it? Were you scared I'd love it better- love it more, like how you tried to keep me away from Jacob and Charlie and everyone else who gave a damn? Was it selfish only in the sense you wanted me all to yourself without any distractions, much less a distraction I could have the potential to care about more than I cared for you?"

"Bella, no," He whispered, horrified. His eyes were incredulous, full of hurt. "Never. I hate myself for that even being a possibility to you."

"How could I not see it like that?" I argued. "You know, the thing about becoming a vampire is my critical thinking skills have become a lot better. Your whole family- save Carlisle and Esme- manipulated me from day one."

"That's not fair, Bella."

" _They stood by while you forced me to have an abortion_. I'm pretty sure that's a form of domestic abuse, first of all-"

"I did it to protect you." Edward hissed, and I could see the thin veneer of sanity that he was holding onto slip. "It was ludicrous. Even knowing- even _holding her,_ you would have died. What if I couldn't have gotten your heart beating? What if she had died, too- what if I was left alone, _without you, without anything_? You can't tell me that if the situations were reversed, you wouldn't have thought about doing the same thing. I heard it in Jasper's thoughts- he would have done anything for Alice-"

"I would never have done that to you." I said fiercely. "And we would have lived. Both of us. I knew it when I saw her. I knew exactly what you'd stolen. You stole everyone's happiness, Edward, and you're right; you did destroy your family, and our marriage, and my humanity. You should be disgusted with yourself." I stood up. "I thought I could do this, I thought I could say goodbye. But I can't. I have to go now."

"Bella, please," Edward whispered, molten beauty gazing at me, his face contorted in surely what was supposed to persuade me to cave. "Stay, _please stay._ I can't live without you, you know that."

"Them you'd better learn." I replied coldly, devoid of emotion. "You left me, and now it's my turn to leave you. You took from me, and _now I'm taking from you_. But I'm not coming back, Edward. You know that. You've _seen_ it. I will _never_ be a Cullen, but you took being a Swan. I'm not even Bella anymore. I don't even know who I am, but you know what? You're not allowed to dictate that for any longer."

He looked at me in shock, and a wild denial crossed his features. I knew in that moment that he wished I was human so he could physically stop me from leaving him, but I turned my back and started to run. And I ran, and I ran, and I ran. I ran from Forks. From Washington. From Renesmee's grave, from Edward's Burning Man face. I ran from Jacob's funeral. I ran from the Cullen's, from the place that had stopped my heart and soul from living.

Edward did not follow me.


	4. charlie

_The truth is this:_

 _My love for you is the only empire_

 _I will ever build._

 _When it falls,_

 _as all empires do,_

 _my career in empire building will be over._

 _Mindy Nenette, This is the Nonsense of Love_

I TRAVELED endlessly, recreating myself wherever I went. Recreation: a verb in it's own right, my own. I was born Isabella Swan, but I died a Cullen, and I was reborn into a life without a name, without even any blood to claim.

The first few years were the hardest to live with. After I ran and Edward did not follow me, I went to Canada and spent what felt like forever experiencing feral. I became primitive, wild. I did not feed on humans- not out of respect for the Cullen's- but of my own values. It was easier than I thought, and deer appealed to me more. _Rats of the forest_ , they were everywhere; their heavy, thumping hearts, their tangy blood. I went three, four, five years without seeing any humans- or vampires- until curiosity slowly began to overtake my soul.

Gradually, my feral mentality began to subside, and I felt myself becoming more- human, for lack of a better word. Of course, I did not allow myself to think that I was becoming softer around the edges. But Charlie began to appear more in my thoughts, and with a panicked start, I realized he would be getting well into his fifties. _Old._ An old fear, an old remnant of human instinct flowed through me. I must not be alone in this world.

But I would be, I knew that. It would only be a moment before his heart stopped beating forever- Renee's too- and then, I would be alone; truly without roots. I found myself thinking even of the Cullen's. How beautiful they had seemed to me, how once their name had been a very hymn in my heart, a prayer in my hands, practically gospel in my mouth. I had worshipped them. Now, I simply felt a vague wonder, a stirring, at the mention of them. The previous half-decade in the Canadian woods had removed some of emotions towards them. Of course, I was still filled with a festering resentment, but because I was more animal than human now, it had dimmed some, like I'd turned down the lights. The darkness allowed for some curiosity.

It was a January winter when Jasper found me.

I had created a pattern that I repeated when I traveled. I would scope out the areas, the mountains, and make sure there were no campers or hikers anywhere in a radius of at least twenty miles. Originally, I had gone East- ending up somewhere near Quebec when I first left. I quickly went farther West in Canada, preferring the endless tundra to the Canadian French. I became quickly accustomed to being alone. Even as a human, I'd been solitary- never quite fitting anywhere, and coming to terms with it, even _preferring_ it, although I rarely admitted my penchant for being alone. I knew it was unnatural for a person to be so solitary. But now I truly had a reason, and only brief pangs of loneliness. I was only really ever lonely when I would venture into a community for clothes or mild upkeep, to avoid being spotted as some runaway from a serial killer in the woods or something akin to that. I was nearly impervious to truly being feral, anyway- my hair rarely got caked with anything but blood, and even that washed off well the second I'd step in a river, drying perfectly under the sun. The only issue was my clothes. I did try to keep them clean, but mostly I stuck to sneaking into a community and stealing jeans, sweaters when I needed to. When Jasper found me, it was because I had recently gone to a sporting goods store to steal a parka and some jeans, hiking boots. If anyone ever did stumble across me in the woods, I wanted to look the part of a human, even if my location proved to be impossible to be at alone.

I heard his footsteps a mile off. My hearing had only gotten sharper the longer I'd spent away from humanity, or else there was so little sound that I heard other things more intensely.

I walked, curious and resigned. I knew that it was another vampire, and I was certain it was one of the Cullen's. No- not Edward- I imagined he was somewhere in South America or Europe, reading up on Roman literature late at night at some library, pretending to be a foreign-exchange student. That was easy to imagine, and even easier to abhor.

The smell. Sandalwood and gunsmoke, the oil of a rifle. Peaches. Jasper Hale.

We saw each other from a long distance. He offered his arm up in a hesitant wave, unsure if I would run or not, and I found myself waving back. "Hello, Jazz," I murmured quietly, knowing he would hear me even across the forest. His nickname sprung from my lips easily. We had never been too terribly close, but my first day as a vampire had utterly changed me. It was Jasper after all, and Jasper alone, who had been able to comfort me in a way that I had not felt before nor since.

"Bella." I heard. It was the first time that anyone had spoken my name in many years.

I slowly started to walk towards him, and he did the same. I felt no emotional pull nor push from him; he simply let me be, and I wondered what he was reading from me. I didn't in particular _feel_ these days. I hunted, and I ran, and I washed myself in the river, and I watched the clouds in the sky shift themselves over to the West and the constellations take their place over my head. And then I watched those constellations disappear with a rising sun, and I repeated this day after day, night after night. On full moons, I laid on my back on a mountaintop, high enough that no experienced climber could even get to me, and I opened my eyes to the heavens and I thought of her.

Only rarely did I indulge myself in memories. It was more special to savor those fading moments then, when I knew that the sky would start all over the next night and so could I.

I gazed at his face with wonder as he approached. I, myself, had rarely looked in the mirror since becoming basically a vampire hermit, and then only to check the color of my eyes and make sure that I hadn't dissociated and gone off and killed several humans. His eyes mirrored mine, I noticed with relief. Molten gold. The same honey-blonde curls, the same furrowed expression, the same appraising, speculative gaze he'd always had. I wondered how frustrating it could be to be able to read someone's exact emotions, but have absolutely no idea the reasoning behind them, what had happened to make a person feel such a way. I'm sure Jasper had lots of practice guessing, and it was my own best guess he was probably pretty good at it by now, anyway. But I saw the frustration on his face. He'd been expecting something…. different. I wondered if I was disappointing, if my lack of emotion was bothering him.

"You're looking well," He said to me, only half-lying. I suppressed a wry grin.

"About as well as a hermit can, I guess." I agreed. He gave a me a surprised smile, but it faded quickly.

"It's Charlie, Bella." The tone of his voice was final, resolute. I felt something deep inside my chest- my utterly still chest- fall to the pit of the earth. Jasper's face twisted. "He's still alive, but-"

"But?" I asked sharply.

Jasper looked out towards the trees. "Carlisle's been treating him for stage four pancreatic cancer for the last month. He came in with symptoms only a little before then."

So many questions. "This is the end?"

Jasper nodded. "He's been asking for you, Bella. We staged a fire with you and Edward after he left, but I never thought that Charlie really believed it. He's sick. He asked Carlisle- demanded, really- that he do this one last thing for him. He said he knows you're alive, and that you aren't with Edward anymore. He was fine about that part. He said, 'Witness protection program be damned, Carlisle, I want to see my daughter'."

"But." I swallowed, even though there was no need for it anymore. "He'll know I'm different. He'll know I'm like you now."

"Alice wants to help." Jasper said softly. "She's got some things ready for you- things we got before you were even turned- if you want to come home. If you want to say goodbye."

"Of course I do." I said, surprising myself. "But I've barely been around people since I left. What would be stopping me from losing it and attacking everyone in the hospital?"

"He's in hospice, Bella. Billy Black and some other people from the reservation are taking care of him in your old home. And I'm just going to say, if you haven't hunted humans yet, chances are you probably never will. You're not a newborn anymore; you must have exceptional self-control, or perhaps a total abhorrence of the life you live."

"Some sadomasochistic dieting gesture," I said. "Like girls who starve themselves, or only eat lettuce and tofu."

"Exactly." Jasper grinned. "But come, Bella. I'm not going to say we don't have time, but-"

"We're running out." I confirmed. He nodded solemnly. And so Jasper and I started running- running out of the woods this time, back to the place I knew in my heart was home. To Charlie.


	5. my home, my father

"Often when I imagine you

your wholeness cascades into many shapes.

You run like a herd of luminous deer

and I am dark, I am forest."

 **Rainer Maria Rilke,** _ **The Book of Hours I, 45**_

 _I am running through your mind. I know it. I know that even though we have been apart for many years now, our roots are undeniably tangled: like twin trees, we will always come back to the same place. We grew from the same dirt. I am running through the physical trees, too. The goodbye was hard. My family's golden eyes- much like I hope yours are, now, although how could I blame you if they were not?- followed my every move, my every avoiding of their eyes. No arguing. We all knew a crossroads were upon us, upon me._

 _She kept her thoughts hidden. I could not read where you were, or where I should go. It was quite the accomplishment. I searched her mind thoroughly, looking for any bit of information I could use to track you down. But, true to her word, she said she'd never tell. I heard Paganini, found her rapidly reciting every word of Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I could not help but notice her homage to the memory of you. I broke through her firewalls; pushing past her memories of long nights, sultry, humid, naked, diamond skin. Pushed past her pain, her memories. It was hard. But nothing could stop me._

 _I left, hopeless. Her mind was too wrapped up. I could tell your location was in the middle of it, past walls I could never break through._ Alice the Psychologist _. Too much time in the psych ward had obviously benefited her, although I'd never had to try until now. I traveled to Italy. I hesitated outside the gates of the city, knowing that if I walked in and asked to die, they would kill me. I also knew that nobody would stop me this time._

 _I left. I did not enter. For as long as I knew you were on this earth, as long as there was a smidgen of a chance that I could even see your face, then I did not want to die. I was selfish. I did not want to die._

 _I studied in Italy, then. I caught up on my Italian, I studied in ancient libraries, I hunted outside the cities at night, in the clear countryside, on European deer. On weekends, I ran. I hunted. I swam in the Channel. I thought about where you might be. I climbed the Russian steppes, I wrote papers. I earned another degree. I sent my graduation cap to my family to be hung on the wall one dark night. I did not get a response._

 _I did not go looking for you. I did not catch your scent. You'd never been to Europe. There was a whole side of the world that never knew your face, your scent, the sound of your laugh. I was envious of them. I was envious in the sense that they did not know your face. They did not know the impossible night I lived in now that I knew your face and could not see. Could not touch._

 _I am still running through the trees in my mind, and somewhere, I find you. And you let me touch you again. You smile at me, a dazzling, pure proof of beauty. But I am not running in this world. I am writing these words to you, my candle running low, my pen on paper. I am writing, and you will never read. Like I will never touch your face so soft at night again, you will never read these words._

 **Tu me manques** _. The French said it better than I ever will._ **You are missing from me.**

ALICE Cullen was not changed. Her pixie face was perhaps more strained than I remembered, but the sight of her sent a flood of memories, associations that I didn't think I remembered anymore. _My wedding. Alice's pinched face, her satisfaction when I sat there like a lily in my wedding dress. Alice, hiding when I was pregnant with the baby. Alice, my best friend. The betrayal I felt after being turned. You were supposed to be my best friend. The resentment. The recoiling at her touch._ The waves of hurt, shock.

"Bella," She breathed. Jasper quietly left the room. "How are you holding up?"

I knew at once I did not have to lie. Alice saw my future, my past, everything. She'd seen things I'd done- I'd felt- before they had even happen to me.

I had already forgiven Jasper. He was the first. I'd forgiven him the moment he'd taken my pain away that one glorious moment so many years ago, yet I hadn't admitted it to myself until now. And I felt myself forgiving Alice now.

"My father is dying." I said, voice low. "I want to go to him. One last time." My voice caught in my throat, and I looked away.

"Oh, Bella," Alice said, taking one of my hands cautiously. Surprisingly, I let her. It was strange. It was the first touch I'd had in years, and it felt _strange_ ; not exactly bad, but very foreign. But her hand was warm to me and smooth, verging on soft. "I'll get you ready, sweetie. We've got everything here to lessen the blow to Charlie."

Alice sat me in a chair in the bathroom, and set to work. "He's very fragile, Bella." Alice explained. "I'm going to put you in some makeup to make you look human so that you don't shock him. To someone in Charlie's condition, shock is very, very bad."

I simply nodded, accepting. She curled bits of my hair and sprayed it with hairspray and some other kind of spray to make it slightly messy, a little rumpled, like I'd forgotten to brush it. She smothered my skin in makeup- ivory shades of expensive foundation that lessened the pallor of my skin. She applied blush and gloss to my cheeks, to make me look fresh, and contoured my face in an attempt to bring some humanity back to me. She placed itchy contact lenses in my eyes, much to my resigned dismay, and handed me a worn pair of jeans and a t-shirt- which I immediately recognized. They were actually an old outfit that I'd left at the Cullen's in a suitcase when I left. I brought them to my nose and sniffed. They still smelled slightly like Human Bella- floral and warm and with an enticing, biting undertone.

"You smelled good," Alice said, a small, hesitant smile on her lips.

"Yes," I agreed quietly. Alice brought over a small mirror.

"Of course, it's not exact." Alice said quietly. "But you're supposed to be a bit older, anyway, and he hasn't seen you in more than half a decade. Human memories compensate. He'll recognize you, at least. I couldn't say the same if you still looked like a vampire. But you will have to change out your contacts; the ones I put in will dissolve in roughly four hours due to the venom in our eyes. I put some extra pairs in your purse." Alice handed me a small brown bag, again, which I recognized. I opened it. My old wallet, complete with my old license- long since expired. A few twenties, along with what I guessed to be five fifties and even a few hundreds. A heavy, pure black credit card. Extra contacts, just as Alice had said. Some powder foundation. A glossy, new iPhone. And a set of car keys. I pulled those out; the emblem said Volvo, and I looked outside to see a small black car in the driveway.

"Thank you, Alice." I murmured, turning the keys over in my hand.

"Of course." Alice said immediately. "They're all yours, anyway. Nobody in the family wanted to take anything away from you. The passcode on the phone is your old birthday. Esme's gotten a new phone for you every year since you've been gone, even if Jasper says it's silly."

I smiled wistfully, a little sadly. "Tell her I said thanks. I'm going to go now, Alice." I walked to the door then, but paused a little and looked back. "In a couple hours, would you join us? Charlie always loved you. And I'm sure he'll want to say goodbye."

"Always, Bella." Alice agreed, her eyes locking mine. "I'll text you when I'm outside."

I disappeared outside without another word; I didn't need to say anything else. I wasn't sure if it was Jasper or myself, but I felt at peace with her. _It was me_ , I decided. Jasper wouldn't intervene like that- not after he'd known my pain. But I knew he sensed my peace, wherever he was, and so I willed myself to send a wave of thanks to Jasper for coming to get me. "You're welcome, Bella." I heard a soft voice say as I stepped into the Volvo and closed the door quietly.

The engine purred as the car came to life. There were exactly three miles on the dash. I heard the stereo play a soft, lilting version of _Clair de Lune_ on the NPR station, and I turned up the lovely music as I shifted the car into drive and began the drive to my old home, to where my father lay dying.

THE CAR drove so smoothly, I barely caught myself going eighty in a fifty-five until I happened to glance at the low dashboard. By then, I was almost there, anyway. It had started to lightly rain, and a cool mist blew over my face as I stepped out of the car and crossed the threshold to my childhood home. It was nearly exactly as how I'd left it, although the paint was peeling a little now, and Charlie's old Cruiser had been swapped out for what I recognized with a pang as my beloved old truck. I'd thought Edward junked it the summer before I was turned; after it'd died, I'd never seen it again at my house nor his. But based on the new tires and a small dreamcatcher hanging from the mirror, I quickly came to the assumption that someone on the reservation had gotten ahold of it and fixed it back up again. I was grateful. I wondered if it belonged to my father again, or if someone else was driving it now. It was the only car in the driveway, but I didn't fool myself that Charlie was the only one in the house. Although my father wouldn't even suspect what I was, I knew that there was a good chance that whoever was in the house with him sure as hell would.

I paused for a moment and took a deep, intentional breath of air before I braced myself to knock on the door. Testing it. A flurry of scents overtook me; a wet, thumping, human blood smell, rich with iron and woodsmoke. Billy Black. And a weaker, diluted form of the smell I'd smelled earlier on the clothes I was now wearing, although it stung my nose and sent a jolt of panic through me. I could smell the sickness in his blood. It was bad, very bad. I had no instinct to drink his blood; only to recoil. He was very close to death. As far as Billy, I could hold my breath. It wasn't any more tempting than any other human I'd run across since I was turned.

I raised my hand to rap sharply on the door; perhaps a little too sharply, for I heard both of them start. Billy wheeled slowly to the door, unlocking it and peering outside distrustfully. His visage of distrust did not fade in the slightest once he saw me; I saw a flicker of recognition and shock before he hastily composed his features into a mask of hard suspicion.

"Who is it?" I heard my dad call out, briefly, hopefully. I wanted to be six years old again, and be able to jump into his arms, away from the wave pools at the La Push beach. I wanted to be seventeen years old again, actually seventeen, and take back those words I'd hurled at him to get away from James. I wanted to be eighteen years old again, and spend all those moments I'd wasted on Edward with my father, who would die. Until that moment with Billy Black staring at me through hooded eyes, I'd never truly thought my father would die, in the way that all children with living parents do. I'd never actually believed it; I couldn't. And now I was a vampire, and I would never die. And I would watch my own father, my own flesh, my own blood, die, and I would carry that around with me until the day the world ended.

"Just one second, Charlie." Billy called back, his voice leaving no clues. I heard my dad grumble to himself, disappointment clearly in his vague complaints. It hurt my heart to think of how these last five years, he'd probably spent every doorbell, every knock, every phone call hoping that it was me, only to be soul-crushingly disappointed when it never was. _Dad, I'm sorry,_ I thought to myself desperately, my soul burning. _I'm so sorry._

"Bella, what are you doing here?" Billy asked me in a low voice.

"Saying goodbye," I answered, my voice thick.

He looked me in the eyes for several moments before his gaze suddenly softened and I smelled salt as he looked away. I knew he was thinking about Jacob. "I know what you are." He replied. "You're not Bella anymore."

"No." I agreed quietly. "Not really. But I won't hurt him, Billy. I've never hurt a human before. And he's my father-" My voice halted again. "He needs to see me. You know that. The Cullens found me to tell me he asked for me. You, of all people, have to know he doesn't think that I died in that house fire."

"No, he doesn't." Billy finally confirmed after a long moment. The rain was starting to pick up, and Billy fully opened the door, letting me walk in. I inhaled. The smell of my childhood above all; gunsmoke, leather, and flannel shirts. Knit blankets. Dusty, lovable Charlie.

The kitchen cabinets were still painted yellow.

"I got someone to see you, Charlie." Billy said gruffly. "It might be a surprise, so brace yourself, Chief Swan."

I walked into the door, and saw my father's mouth drop open in full surprise. His heart rate picked up so rapidly I was scared for a moment that he would have some kind of cardiac event. As I walked slowly to him in alarm, his heart rate began to slow down, and a look of amazement and wonder overtook his face. I looked at him, and he looked at me. He looked older, more wrinkled, and he had started to go gray around his temples. He looked sick, too, but I'd expected that, had prepared myself for it. He wasn't hooked up to anything, but there was a hospital bed with a detached IV bag in the living room that he was laying on instead of a couch, and he was a lot thinner, although he'd never been fat. "Bells!" He exclaimed. He held out his arms, and I leaned into him as I heard Billy loudly suck in his breath behind me. I ignored him.

"Dad, I'm so glad to see you." I said, muffled by the flannel shirt he had on. I could smell the sickness concentrated in his abdomen, near what I assumed was his pancreas, and then more up near his neck, his lymph nodes. It'd metastasized. Either Jasper didn't tell me that, or it was a recent development.

We pulled away, and Charlie looked at me with a sheer wave of radiating happiness across his features. He studied me, and I saw not only recognition, but more amazement the longer he looked at me. "Bella, you're so beautiful," He wondered out loud. Behind us, Billy snorted, and I flipped him off behind my back. Charlie didn't notice. "You're all grown up now. I-" He faltered, and a look of concern took over his features. "Are you safe? Did Edward hurt you?"

"No, Dad," I told him, the epitome of persuasion. He immediately relaxed back into his pillow, and I continued with the same persuasive tone to ease all of his worry. "Edward and I got a divorce. You were right, Dad. We were too young."

"What about the fire story?" He asked, his eyes searching mine. "I would have taken you back home, Bells. You could have stayed as long as you liked, gone to school in the Cities. I-" His eyes filled with tears. "I would have wanted you here. I would have died to get you back." He stammered, coughed a little, smiled weakly at me. "I _am_ dying to get you back, Bella."

"No, Dad, don't say that," I whispered, horrified. I looked away from his face for the first time, trying to find composure. "I had a miscarriage, Dad. After, I was institutionalized for a few years. It was bad. Edward staged a house fire. His family, to this day, believes it. He didn't want anyone to know I was institutionalized, and he ran away. I haven't seen him in years. Alice and Jasper finally tracked him down and he came clean about me being alive. That's how I found you, Dad."

Charlie's eyes were wide. He believed every word, although I could practically feel tidal waves of skepticism coming of Billy. "Bella, no," He croaked out. "I'm so sorry, Bells. I'm so, so sorry." He gripped one of my pale hands in his, but didn't even notice a temperature difference. "That bastard. Bella, I hate to say it, but I always knew what kind of man he was. Ever since the beginning. The biggest coward of them all. He's not even a man at all."

"That's for damn right." Billy muttered behind us.

"How far along were you?" Charlie asked. I froze, and he quickly followed up with, "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it."

"No, it's okay," I said quietly. "Three months, give or take. We were waiting to see if the baby was healthy. She was a girl, a perfect little girl. Her name is Renesmee Carlie Cullen." I smiled at him. "Carlie. Like you, Dad."

Charlie smiled broadly. "Renesmee Carlie," He repeated to himself, a pleased tone to his voice. "That's beautiful, kid."

"Thank you." I said. "You would have loved her."

"Of course I would have." Charlie replied. "I do, Bella." He gave my hand a soft squeeze, his deep brown eyes locking on mine. "I'll see her soon, Bells. I'll take care of her up there, I promise." A few tears leaked from his eyes. "Don't worry," He continued. "She'll have Grandpa up there until you come to take care of her."

"Thank you, Dad." I croaked out, my voice thick, the closest I got to crying. "I've missed you. I'm so sorry I didn't come home sooner. I'm sorry for everything. For not spending enough time with you, for not coming home. I'm sorry about- about when I left to go to Florida when I was a junior and I got so hurt. I'm sorry for everything I said. I didn't mean it, any of it. It's just- I had to get away, and I knew that was the only way you'd let me leave. I'm so sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it." I burrowed my head into his flannel, feeling like a little girl again. I felt his hot tears hit my scalp, and his hand rest against the back of my head, holding me to him. His heartbeat in my eyes sounded so loud, yet I knew he had so little time left.

"It's okay, Bella." He told me, voice strong. "I love you so much, kid. I always forgave you. For everything. Of course I forgave you, I was never mad. I understand. He had- such a hold over you. But, Bella." Charlie pulled me up to look at me, face blazing. "Don't you ever go back to him, you hear me? You move on with your life. You listen to me. You can love someone and not go back. He's not right for you. You stay away, no matter what he says. Promise me, Bella."

I stared at him, transfixed. "I promise, Dad."

His face relaxed again. "Thank you, Bella. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't scared it was all some elaborate plan to get you away with him, to take you away from everyone who loved you. The only thing that stopped me from starting a formal investigation was the rest of the Cullen's. I didn't think Carlisle would ever go along with something like that."

"You're right." I said softly. "You've always been right, Dad."

Charlie's face was clear, yet so tired. "I'm not gonna say you're wrong, Bells." We lapsed into a comfortable, resolved silence, with my father's arm and mine intertwined. Billy changed the channel to an old showing of a football game, and we sat there that night, me, my father, and Billy. The vampire, the human, and the old warrior. We sat there, afternoon winter light fading into a dark dusk, and my phone buzzed some hours later.

Alice was outside.

When I opened the door, she cautiously walked in. I'd pulled Billy aside to give him the rundown on her later, and he'd grudgingly asked if there were any more bloodsuckers we should watch out for. I'd had to hide a smile, getting flashbacks to my old Jacob, thinking sadly how much Billy's outlook would have had to change on vampires as a whole if Renesmee had been born.

Billy had asked me to wait before I went to get Alice, who was patiently waiting outside, despite the then-pouring rain. "That story you told your dad," He'd began. "How much of that was true?"

"I really was pregnant." I stated softly. "Edward aborted her. He took her away. She wasn't a monster, Billy," I began, seeing the expression on his face. "She was a baby, just like any other- with a few differences. She was half-vampire. And Jacob." I said, seeing the look on his face at the mention of his dead son but choosing to continue. "She was Jacob's imprint, Billy. In the time before I was changed, I saw them both in some kind of afterlife. Jacob said our souls died when she did. That's why- that's why he killed himself. It wasn't because of me; it was because of her."

Billy looked me in the eye, and I could tell he believed me. A raw, pleading honest note had entered my voice, the kind that can't be replicated. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Billy." I added. "But trust me, and please don't take this the wrong way, he's with her now, and he's happier. Imagine if Sam lost Emily. That's how Jake would have been. You wouldn't have been able to stand it."

Billy nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss, too, Bella." He gazed at me. "And about what your dad said, about Edward not being a real man. Even if it's true in the literal sense, it's true in the metaphorical sense, too, Bella. A real man- a real husband would never have taken that choice away from you. He was wrong. And I can see now that we are all hurt by his decisions."

Billy began to wheel away from the kitchen, back to Charlie, who was coughing softly. "Thanks for telling me, Bella." He called softly. "I appreciate your honesty." I had no doubt in my mind that Billy would tell the others about our conversation, but I didn't mind. I just hoped that Edward would never come back to Forks, because as long as Sam Uley or any of the rest of the pack was around- which would be for quite a while- they would kill him in a second if they even caught scent of him.

But Alice had been outside, and I had to let her in. The last thing that crossed my mind before she crossed the threshold was her brother. Edward. My husband.

I wasn't sure if I'd be upset if Sam or the rest of the pack killed him someday. I wasn't sure if I'd feel anything at all.

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews so far! I've been toying around with this idea for a while now and I really appreciate all of the feedback, because it's all so positive and nice and some of it actually makes me think- like the whole "what now?" review that really made me motivated to make this story my own and make something happen! I always appreciate reviews and I'm not going to be one of "those" authors who ~demands~ reviews, but they seriously make my day and if you have anything to say or add or offer, please let me know! Constructive criticism is also always welcome :)


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